Improved spring bed-bottom



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

OTIS HOVE, OF CAMBRIDGEPORT, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPRovED SPRING BED-BOTTOM.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 33,741, dated November 19, 1S61.

To @ZZ whom, it may concern.-

Be it known that I, OTIS HOWE, of Cambridgeport, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Spring-Beds or Bed-Foundations, which I do hereby declare is fully described and represented in the following specitication and the accompanying drawings.

My invention is applicable to those bedfoundations which are composed of a series of spring bars or slats arranged parallel to each other in the bedstead or bedstead-frame and serve to receive a mattress or bed.

In the drawings I have exhibited the application of my invention to one of such bars only, as in anybedstead in which it may be used itis to be similarly applied to every or nearly every one of such spring-bars that it may have.

Figure l represents a top View of a springbar and its supporting-frame. Fig. 2 is a longitudinal section of the same. Fig. 3 is a transverse section of the bed-frame, it being taken through one of the end rails and the rocker of the spring-bearing'. Fig. 4 is a transverse section of the socket, not only of the end rail but the leg of the rocker. Fig. 5 is a top view of the spring-bearer with the rocker folded or turned up, so as to bring both in the most convenient positions for transportation and package.

The spring-bearer or slat is shown at A, while its supporting or bed frame or bedstead is shown at B, a a being the head and foot rails or cross-bars of such frame. The part A is a long and thin strip of wood or other suitable elastic material capable of being made to spring or to yield to the weight of a persons body. Near each end of it and to it a rocker or projection C is hinged. In the drawings, and particularly in Fig. 6, this rocker is exhibited as a piece of wire bent in a U fcrm, so as to have two legs d d projecting at right angles from au intermediate part c, the said part e being the portion that passes through the spring-bar from one edge to the other; or, if desirable, it may be attached to the bearing-surface of the springbar by a clasp. In either of these ways the rocker may be hinged to the spring-bar. It will also be evident that the rocker might be rigidly fastened to the spring-bearer; but this method is not so advantageous.

Each leg of the rocker is to extend into a tapering, conical, or flaring hole or socket g, formed in the rails of the bedstead or frame at, and is to rest at its lower end on the bottom of such socket and to extend out and above the same, as shown in Figs. 3 and 4t. The socket is to be of greatest diameter at its top and gradually decrease in diameter as it descends in the rail, it being formed in such manner or of such size as not only to support the lower end of the rocker-leg and allow the leg to vibrate under the vertical springing of the spring-bearer, but to serve as a stop for the said leg to bring up against in order to arrest farther rearward springing or bending of the spring-bearer after it may have been sprung or bent downward to acertain limit.

When a spring-bed foundation is composed of spring-bars and rockers applied together and to the rails ot' a bedstead or a bedsteadframe, as described, the removal of each bar from the bedstead or frame is a matter of great ease, as it has only to be lifted upward, so as to d raw the rockers out of the sockets, after which the rockers may be turned around into position with respect to their springbar, as shown in Fig. 5, and so as to render the whole very portable or capable of taking up very little space while being packed together with other spring-bars of like description.

I do not claim the invention of a rocker link for supporting the spring-bearer of a bed-foundation, as such is shown in Letters Patent of the United States, granted to Tyler I-Iowe and numbered 11,054; but

I claim-d My improved inode of constructing the rocker and applying it to the bedstead or bed-frame, viz: making such rocker with one or more legs and constructing the bedstead or bed-frame with one or more conical or flaring sockets to receive, support, and estop such leg or legs, in manner substantially as described, and enable such to vibrate longitudinally of the spring-bearer and to be raised out of such sockets, substantially as specified.

OTIS HOWE.

Witnesses:

F. P. HALE, J. R. BAMPTON. 

